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en-usTechdirt. Stories about "imdb"https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/td-88x31.gifhttps://www.techdirt.com/Tue, 10 Feb 2015 13:30:22 PSTActress Seeking $1 Million From IMDb For Publishing Her Real Age Was Pulling In Less Than $2000 A YearTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150207/14372629948/actress-seeking-1-million-imdb-publishing-her-real-age-was-pulling-less-than-2000-year.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150207/14372629948/actress-seeking-1-million-imdb-publishing-her-real-age-was-pulling-less-than-2000-year.shtmlwho sued IMDb for revealing her true age -- continues to fight her long-running court battle in the midst of a lost war. Hoang didn't like the fact that IMDb posted her real age, claiming that exposing this fact limited her future acting options. (A look at her past acting credits would seem to indicate this ship sailed long ago, back when she was still an ageless beauty. If anything, it shows her career has been remarkably consistent in terms of number of roles, both pre-exposure and post.)

The war is already lost. Junie Hoang tried to sue anonymously, in the hope of protecting her future from the menace of her actual birthdate, but was shot down by the presiding judge. Now, the facts are completely public, and all Hoang has left to fight for is damages she feels she's owed for IMDb's scuttling of her blossoming career. She puts this number at $1 million. But as Venkat Balasubramani notes in his coverage of the oral arguments, Hoang seems to be greatly overestimating her losses.

Harry Schneider, IMDb’s lawyer, walked Hoang through her tax returns. Without coming out and saying it, he highlighted that Hoang didn’t make very much money from acting, and that she deducted a fair amount of expenses for the amount of money she made. For example, her acting income in 2010 was between $1000 and $2000, but she deducted amounts for hair and makeup ($987), shoes ($318.86) and miscellaneous expenses ($523). The implication was that Hoang's acting was more of a hobby and less of a serious occupation.

Even granting Hoang the greater of the two figures ($2000) means the actress felt she had about 500 years of acting ahead of her, if only IMDb hadn't sabotaged her bright and extremely long future.

Then there's the apparent fact that Junie Hoang wanted the benefits of an IMDb pro account, but without having to follow the terms of use.

The most grueling part of the cross examination came when Schneider walked Hoang through the IMDb user agreement and its provisions where users promise to submit accurate information.

The attorney pointed Hoang's attention to various ways she had made some artifice -- submitting an incorrect birthdate initially (she entered in text indicating that she had a supporting birth certificate), entering information through accounts other than her own (despite prohibitions in the user agreement against sharing passwords and accounts), attempting to convince IMDb's customer service that someone else submitted the original date of birth information, and finally, sending over a fake passport image and a fake ID.

In the end, Hoang threw up her arms and admitted she did indeed submit inaccurate information, particularly when she was trying to get the birthdate deleted because she was at wit's end.

Here's the thing: the Internet is terrible at keeping secrets. If you want the widespread exposure that a dominant Hollywood-oriented website provides, you have to accept the fact that attempting to disguise your real age is never going to work. Hoang's argument centers on some shady investigative work done by IMDb customer service -- possibly involving the use of a background check service to gather more info on Hoang based on what IMDb knew and the actress' submitted credit card number.

As for the claims of lost future earnings, even Hoang's own witness -- her agent, Joe Kolkowitz -- was unable to provide verification that Hoang's earning power had decreased after IMDb's publication of her real age.

Kolkowitz testified that a variety of factors influence decisions on whether to hire an actor. Talent is a big part of the decision, he said. He also admitted that he only learned about Hoang’s date of birth through this lawsuit (and not through IMDb) and he was unable to definitively state that the disclosure of her age resulted in a reduced number of acting jobs. Finally, Kolkowitz also admitted that he couldn't say for certain that she had received fewer auditions, and added that he had “no knowledge regarding monetary loss from loss of roles.”

As Balasubramani sums up the day's activities, based on the arguments heard today, Hoang comes across less as a victim of unwanted disclosure than simply a "disgruntled customer" -- albeit one willing to pursue this Quixotic legal battle until all options have been expended.

While there does appear to be a hint of ageism in Hollywood, it's pretty tough to pin down how much each passing birthday costs an actress. And that seemingly apparent desire for young women only is far from a foregone conclusion. Even if IMDb's publication of Hoang's true age did cost her some future roles, it would appear from her resume and yearly earnings that it didn't cost her much -- at least nowhere near the $1 million she continues to seek.

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]]>what's-my-age-again?https://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20150207/14372629948Mon, 15 Apr 2013 07:57:24 PDTSorry, Having IMDB Accurately List Your Age Doesn't Entitle You To A Million DollarsTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130414/18230022702/sorry-having-imdb-accurately-list-your-age-doesnt-entitle-you-to-million-dollars.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130414/18230022702/sorry-having-imdb-accurately-list-your-age-doesnt-entitle-you-to-million-dollars.shtml
Junie Hoang has lost her lawsuit against IMDb. She sued the online database for "breach of contract" after it replaced her fake birthdate (1978) with her real one (1971). The case had a few twists and turns, most of them "wrong ways" and "dead ends."

Claiming the posting of her real birthdate to be an invasion of privacy, Hoang first pursued this suit anonymously for fear of being tossed aside by Hollywood's ageist tendencies. Unfortunately for Hoang, Judge Marsha J. Peschman told her she'd have to reveal her name to proceed with the lawsuit, finding Hoang's worries of industry blacklisting not sufficient enough to justify continued anonymity.

Now, while Hoang claimed revealing her birthdate was an invasion of privacy, she sued IMDb for breach of contract. Here's how this all went down.

Hoang signed up for a subscription service with the website called IMDb Pro... She said she initially listed a false birth year - 1978, instead of 1971 - because she usually plays characters younger than she is.

But eventually, she moved from her hometown of Houston, Texas, to the more competitive entertainment market of Los Angeles, and as what would have been her fake 30th birthday approached, she decided she didn't want any age listed on her profile.

IMDb refused to remove the age listed unless she could provide evidence that it was incorrect. She asked the company to check its records to see if it had any information that would substantiate that age.

The company did so - using her account information to find her real name, and then using her real name to conduct a public records search and discover her true age. IMDb posted her real age on her profile, over her objections.

In essence, Hoang sued IMDb for doing exactly what she asked it to do -- verify her age. She claimed this investigative work violated IMDb's privacy policy. IMDb disagreed with this assessment (along with pretty much every other claim), stating the privacy policy is in place to protect actors' contact info -- not their date of birth, and that listing the date of birth was its First Amendment right.

Hoang was seeking $1 million in damages for harm done to her career by having her real age outed. The jury was not convinced by Hoang's less-than-stellar case, as IMDb noted in its post-trial filing.

“Hoang did not present any testimony, documents, or other evidence supporting her damages allegations of lost income and profits. Neither Hoang nor her agent Joe Kolkowitz—her only two witnesses on damages—offered any testimony about future damages, and neither offered competent testimony on which a reasonable jury could base an award of damages for acting jobs allegedly lost to date.”

Of course, it isn't over until the last appeal has been exhausted and Hoang announced (pretty much as soon as the verdict was read) she will be appealing the decision. She still believes it's unfair that IMDb lists birth dates for actors and actresses and makes it harder for those of a certain age to land roles. She points out that it's illegal for employers to ask interviewees how old they are, but IMDb's listings save those in casting the trouble of skirting the law.

Whether or not another court will find this argument worth $1 million remains to be seen, especially considering Hoang's career arc to this point. She and her agent didn't seem to be too persuasive the first time around and unless they've got something more compelling than "Hollywood is ageist," this appeal will likely fail.

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]]>be-careful-what-you-ask-for...https://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130414/18230022702Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:33:43 PDTWould IMDB Really Not List A Film Because It Was Distributed Via BitTorrent?Mike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100929/01484511219/would-imdb-really-not-list-a-film-because-it-was-distributed-via-bittorrent.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100929/01484511219/would-imdb-really-not-list-a-film-because-it-was-distributed-via-bittorrent.shtmlAllen was the first of an awful lot of you sending in this story of how independent film producer Enzo Tedeschi claims that Amazon-owned IMDB.com refuses to list his film in their database, because of plans to distribute it via BitTorrent. The story is pretty heavy on the speculation side, unfortunately. Tedeschi seems to be doing some interesting things, looking to use crowdfunding to finance the movie, but he claims that IMDB won't list the movie.

The explanation that it's because of the BitTorrent release is pure speculation. Another article, from TorrentFreak provides some more details, with notes of rejection from IMDB. They claim that the movie needs to be associated with a production company that has a history of releasing movies, in order to get listed at this early stage. However, Tedeschi notes that this is a real production house that has released movies in the past, all of which have been listed in IMDB. The only thing that he sees that's different is the planned BitTorrent release.

I'm not sure that's really the case. My guess is that IMDB's admins are somewhat arbitrary in determining what to list, and they have some policies about making sure a movie is really "real" before it gets listed -- hence the claims of not listing it until there's more evidence that the release is coming soon. I'm not sure if this is the best policy for IMDB, but it doesn't sound quite as nefarious as some have made it out to be.